Flaming Sussex

Willy was about to speak but Miriam held up her arm, commanding silence, and then turned to me. ‘I had thought, Sefton, that you might have kept rather better company.’

Willy did not look amused. He looked – well, he looked – emasculated.

‘Anyway,’ said Miriam, ignoring Willy’s obvious irritation. ‘I really shouldn’t be barging in on you boys. I’m sure you have lots to discuss. Racketeering. Extortion. Fraud. White slavery, also?’

Willy got up from the table.

‘You’ll excuse me, but I have other more serious business I need to attend to,’ he said.

‘Oh, really?’ said Miriam. ‘What a shame.’

‘It’s been a pleasure, Miss Morley.’ He didn’t offer his hand.

‘Hasn’t it just?’ said Miriam.

‘Sefton, you know where to find me,’ he said.

‘I do, thanks, Willy.’

‘Byesie bye!’ said Miriam. ‘Mahlzeit!’

And with that, he was gone.

I noticed then that the hubbub in the restaurant had died down. We were drawing attention to ourselves. Or, rather, Miriam was drawing attention to us.

‘Miriam,’ I said quietly, ‘you were really terribly rude to the poor chap.’

‘Oh, come on, Sefton. He’s big enough and ugly enough to take it,’ said Miriam, not at all quietly. ‘Well, maybe not ugly enough. But you know, you really have the most appalling taste in friends and acquaintances.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I said.

‘And so you should,’ she said. ‘It’s a mark of your character. Anyway, enough about him. I’m so glad you called.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? What is it you wanted, Miriam?’

‘Father’s in terrible danger.’

CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_299b9897-4724-525c-85da-218f8d83e697)

I HAD HEARD THIS LINE BEFORE. Miriam’s idea of her father being in terrible danger included his being overworked, underworked, unduly praised, under-appreciated, slighted, patronised, put-upon or indeed treated in any way other than the way in which Miriam treated him, which is to say with absolute, unquestioning devotion and utter dis-dain.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me what sort of danger, Sefton?’

‘What sort of danger, Miriam?’

‘He is being hunted.’

‘Hunted?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Hunted by?’

‘An American, of course.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘An American adventuress.’ If Miriam had had pearls to clutch, she’d have been clutching them.

‘I see.’

‘Americans being undoubtedly the most dangerous among all the world’s adventuresses.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ I said.

Morley was, admittedly, rather susceptible to the attentions of women whose interest and affection he was, alas, entirely incapable of returning. This had caused problems in the past, would cause problems in the future, and had indeed sown considerable confusion among a large swathe of the forty-plus, middle, upper and aristocratic single, divorced and widowed female population of Britain, Europe and North America.

‘Honestly, Sefton, this one has more hooks in her than the proverbial poacher’s hatband,’ continued Miriam, ‘and she is tickling him like a trout.’

‘Like a trout, Miriam?’ I said, smiling.

‘Precisely, Sefton. Like a trout.’

‘Tickling him?’ I said, smiling again, though to no answering smile from Miriam, who was most definitely not in a playful mood.

‘Like a trout, yes, as I said, Sefton. She adopts this low husky voice whenever she’s talking to him.’ Miriam had a low husky voice of her own, I should say, which she used to good effect, and indeed now for the purposes of mimicry. ‘“Mr Morley, you must have the biggest brain I have ever encountered.”’

‘Oh dear,’ I said.

‘It’s quite, quite disgusting,’ said Miriam, raising an eyebrow, the fashion back in those days having been for eyebrows to be plucked to a single line, a fashion that Miriam had mercifully resisted. ‘And anyway, where is Maryland?’

‘Maryland?’ I said.

‘Where she’s from, apparently.’

I wasn’t entirely sure I could have identified Maryland on a map of the United States.

‘Is it a land of Marys?’ I asked.

Miriam ignored this weak joke, a sure sign of her being both irritated and distracted; usually she’d have pounced without hesitation.

‘She was once a keen horsewoman, so she says, though frankly it’d take a shire horse now.’

‘I’m getting the impression you’re not over keen—’